Hello Here is the latest OCaml Weekly News, for the week of April 14 to 21, 2020.
Table of Contents ───────────────── Current_incr: a small incremental library with no dependencies Scikit-learn for OCaml OCaml and opam container images updated: new Fedora/Alpine/Ubuntu images OCamlformat 0.14.0 Hashconsing an AST via PPX Genprint v0.4 Other OCaml News Old CWN Current_incr: a small incremental library with no dependencies ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Archive: <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-current-incr-a-small-incremental-library-with-no-dependencies/5531/1> Thomas Leonard announced ──────────────────────── The recent [OCurrent 0.2] release included a little incremental library which might be interesting to some people. It is useful for writing programs that need to keep some computation up-to-date efficiently as the inputs change. It is similar to the existing [incremental] and [react] libraries already in opam. Unlike `incremental' (which pulls in the whole of `core_kernel'), `current_incr' has no runtime dependencies (and build dependencies only on `ocaml' and `dune'). Unlike `react', `current_incr' immediately stops computations when they are no longer needed (rather than relying on weak references and the garbage collector). It is a fairly direct implementation of the [Adaptive Functional Programming] paper, and might be a good starting point for people wanting to learn about that. You can get the library using `opam': ┌──── │ opam install current_incr └──── Here's a simple example (in utop): ┌──── │ #require "current_incr";; │ │ let total = Current_incr.var 10 │ let complete = Current_incr.var 5 │ │ let status = │ Current_incr.of_cc begin │ Current_incr.read (Current_incr.of_var total) @@ function │ | 0 -> Current_incr.write "No jobs" │ | total -> │ Current_incr.read (Current_incr.of_var complete) @@ fun complete -> │ let frac = float_of_int complete /. float_of_int total in │ Printf.sprintf "%d/%d jobs complete (%.1f%%)" │ complete total (100. *. frac) │ |> Current_incr.write │ end └──── This defines two input variables (`total' and `complete') and a "changeable computation" (`status') whose output depends on them. At the top-level, we can observe the initial state using `observe': ┌──── │ # print_endline @@ Current_incr.observe status;; │ 5/10 jobs complete (50.0%) └──── Unlike a plain `ref' cell, a `Current_incr.var' keeps track of which computations depend on it. After changing them, you must call `propagate' to update the results: ┌──── │ # Current_incr.change total 12;; │ # Current_incr.change complete 4;; │ # print_endline @@ Current_incr.observe status;; │ 5/10 jobs complete (50.0%) (* Not yet updated *) │ │ # Current_incr.propagate (); │ # print_endline @@ Current_incr.observe status;; │ 4/12 jobs complete (33.3%) └──── Computations can have side-effects, and you can use `on_release' to run some compensating action if the computation needs to be undone later. Here's a function that publishes a result, and also registers a compensation for it: ┌──── │ let publish msg = │ Printf.printf "PUBLISH: %s\n%!" msg; │ Current_incr.on_release @@ fun () -> │ Printf.printf "RETRACT: %s\n%!" msg └──── It can be used like this: ┌──── │ # let display = Current_incr.map publish status;; │ PUBLISH: 4/12 jobs complete (33.3%) │ │ # Current_incr.change total 0; │ # Current_incr.propagate () │ RETRACT: 4/12 jobs complete (33.3%) │ PUBLISH: No jobs └──── A major difference between this and the react library (which I've used in previously in [0install's progress reporting] and [CueKeeper]) is that `Current_incr' does not depend on the garbage collector to decide when to stop a computation. In react, you'd have to be careful to make sure that `display' didn't get GC'd (even though you don't need to refer to it again) because if it did then the output would stop getting updated. Also, setting `total' to `0' in react might cause the program to crash with a division-by-zero exception, because the `frac' computation will continue running until it gets GC'd, even though it isn't needed for anything now. [`Current_incr''s API] is pretty small. You might want to wrap it to provide extra features, e.g. • Use of a `result' type to propagate errors. • Integration with `Lwt' to allow asynchronous computations. • Static analysis to render your computation with graphviz. • Persistence of state to disk. If you need that, consider using the main [OCurrent] library, which extends `current_incr' with these features. [OCurrent 0.2] <https://github.com/ocurrent/ocurrent/releases/tag/v0.2> [incremental] <https://github.com/janestreet/incremental> [react] <https://erratique.ch/software/react> [Adaptive Functional Programming] <https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~guyb/papers/popl02.pdf> [0install's progress reporting] <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19975140/how-to-stop-ocaml-garbage-collecting-my-reactive-event-handler> [CueKeeper] <https://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2015/06/22/cuekeeper-internals-irmin/> [`Current_incr''s API] <https://ocurrent.github.io/ocurrent/current_incr/Current_incr/index.html> [OCurrent] <https://github.com/ocurrent/ocurrent> Scikit-learn for OCaml ══════════════════════ Archive: <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/scikit-learn-for-ocaml/5536/1> UnixJunkie announced ──────────────────── Ronan Lehy just hacked this: <https://github.com/lehy/ocaml-sklearn> This might interest a significant number of people out there. We are no more condemned to live in a world full of snakes that will bite us at run-time. :smiley: Ronan Le Hy then said ───────────────────── So I came here to announce ocaml-sklearn as it just got published on Opam, but I see @UnixJunkie did it for me (arigato gozai masu). Anyway: • this ambitions to cover the complete scikit-learn API • this ambition is currently not totally realized, but I wanted to release something initial that one can play with • it's all @UnixJunkie's fault with his funny R wrappers. So: • opam install sklearn • go check out [scikit-learn and its awesome documentation] to know what it does • look at [ocaml-sklearn's documentation] to see what the current OCaml API looks like • have fun with it and tell me what you think of it. [scikit-learn and its awesome documentation] <https://scikit-learn.org> [ocaml-sklearn's documentation] <https://lehy.github.io/ocaml-sklearn/> Anton Kochkov then added ──────────────────────── Probably worth to add here: • <https://github.com/ocaml-community/awesome-ocaml#machine-learning> OCaml and opam container images updated: new Fedora/Alpine/Ubuntu images ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Archive: <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ocaml-and-opam-container-images-updated-new-fedora-alpine-ubuntu-images/5539/1> Anil Madhavapeddy announced ─────────────────────────── The Docker [ocaml and opam container images] have been updated: • Alpine 3.11, Fedora 31 and Ubuntu 20.04 (beta) are now included. • Ubuntu 19.04 and Fedora 29 and 30 are now deprecated. • OCaml 4.09.1 and 4.11.0~dev have been refreshed. You can find the full details of the container images available [on the OCaml infrastructure wiki]. The containers are generated from a set of scripts using [ocaml-dockerfile], and will be migrating over the next six months to use an [ocurrent]-based infrastructure. There will be an announcement on this forum about any user-facing changes that involves, with plenty of time to transition your own CIs over. Thanks go to @talex5 and @XVilka for contributions to this round of updates. [ocaml and opam container images] <https://hub.docker.com/r/ocaml/opam2> [on the OCaml infrastructure wiki] <https://github.com/ocaml/infrastructure/wiki/Containers> [ocaml-dockerfile] <https://github.com/avsm/ocaml-dockerfile> [ocurrent] <https://ocurrent.org> OCamlformat 0.14.0 ══════════════════ Archive: <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-ocamlformat-0-14-0/5435/24> Jules announced ─────────────── As Etienne mentioned, we have released OCamlformat 0.14.1, reverting the change to the defaults and our plans to deprecate the `doc-comments' option. For projects that already upgraded to 0.14.0 (eg. Coq), the `doc-comments' option will change its meaning again. It is necessary to add `doc-comments=before' to have the documentation comments placed before. Moreover, the new option `doc-comments-val' added in 0.14.0 has a higher precedence than `doc-comments', even when it's not set. It is thus necessary to set them both to `before' to have the old "before" behavior. This will be improved in the next release (see <https://github.com/ocaml-ppx/ocamlformat/pull/1340>). Thank you to our early adopters to bear us. We are improving our release process to reduce confusion for the next updates. As usual, if you have any feedback, please open an issue on <https://github.com/ocaml-ppx/ocamlformat> to discuss it with us. Hashconsing an AST via PPX ══════════════════════════ Archive: <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/hashconsing-an-ast-via-ppx/5558/1> Chet Murthy announced ───────────────────── [up-front (so nobody gets the wrong idea): I'm not pushing Camlp5. Rather, I'm just noting that this sort of thing is really easy to do, and I encourage someone to do something similar using the PPX infrastructure.] I didn't want to derail the "Future of PPX" thread, so I thought I'd post separately to answer ivg@ 's issue about hashconsing of ASTs using PPX. It's actually [uh, I think] really, really easy to implement hashconsing of ADTs, using a PPX extension. On a lark, I decided to do it *today*, and while the code I've got isn't sufficient to use, I think it's not very far away, and I have the perfect use-case already in-mind. It took me two hours to implement the rewriter and the testcase, on top of the other infrastructure, which has no support for hashconsing of any sort. Here are some examples of data-types and functions that are automaticaly hash-consed. The idea is that in the pattern-match the pattern is annotated with a variable (in this example, "z"); the expression that is supposed to be hash-consed against that pattern is annotated with that same variable. [The code that descends to the expression is a little weak right now, but I think that's easily fixable.] The algorithm goes as follows: (1) "decorate" the pattern with "as z_<integer>" variables everywhere in constructors. This allows us to refer to parts of the original value. (2) then find each expression that is marked with that same varable. Structurally descend the pattern and the expression in parallel and generate code to compare sub-structure and hashcons where appropriate. And that's really it. I'm sure this can be implemented using the PPX tools. Some comments: (1) what's nice, is that we can just take already-written code like `List.map' and annotate it; that generates a hash-consed version. And since the generated code never uses deep structural equality (only pointer-equality) it should be only marginally slower than the original implementation. (2) The variable in the annotation ("z") is used as the base for generating a whole slew of fresh variables, and I don't bother (yet) to check for clashes; this (again) is straightforward, but hey, I started two hours ago. ┌──── │ type t = Leaf of int | Node of t * int * t │ │ module HCList = struct │ │ let rec map f = function │ [][@hashrecons z] -> [][@hashrecons z] │ | (a::l)[@hashrecons z] -> let r = f a in ((r :: map f l)[@hashrecons z]) │ │ end │ │ let deep = │ let rec deep = (function │ Leaf n[@hashrecons z] -> Leaf n[@hashrecons z] │ | Node (l, n, r) [@hashrecons z] -> │ Node (deep l, n, deep r) [@hashrecons z] │ ) │ [@@ocaml.warning "-26"] │ in deep │ │ type sexp = │ | Atom of string │ | List of sexp list │ │ let sexp_deep = │ let rec deep = function │ Atom s[@hashrecons z] -> Atom s[@hashrecons z] │ | List l[@hashrecons z] -> List (HCList.map deep l)[@hashrecons z] │ in deep └──── Links: First, at the commit, so they won't change the testcase file: <https://github.com/chetmurthy/pa_ppx/commit/5dd6b2ef3ca3677e11a0ad696074200101bd661f#diff-e6dffe78fc6c27bdffa41970c4a7f1ca> the "ppx rewriter": <https://github.com/chetmurthy/pa_ppx/commit/5dd6b2ef3ca3677e11a0ad696074200101bd661f#diff-24aeaf51366017948f5735727f001c85> Second, the files with human-readable names, etc.: the testcase: <https://github.com/chetmurthy/pa_ppx/blob/master/tests/test_hashrecons.ml> the "ppx rewriter": <https://github.com/chetmurthy/pa_ppx/blob/master/pa_hashrecons/pa_hashrecons.ml> The projects: chetmurthy/pa_ppx: A reimplementation of ppx_deriving, all its plugins, ppx_import, and a few others. <https://github.com/chetmurthy/pa_ppx> chetmurthy/camlp5: Camlp5, version pre-8.00 on which the above is based. This is on the branch 26.attempt-pa-deriving . Kakadu said ─────────── I experimented with this some time ago for ML workshop. The idea was to provide function: `t -> htbl -> htbl * t' which rewrites value of type `t' by removing equal subtrees. Essentially it is just a fold over data type. <https://github.com/kakadu/GT/blob/master/regression/test816hash.ml#L74> Chet Murthy asked and Josh Berdine replied ────────────────────────────────────────── If you wanna use a hashtable (and, I presume, Obj.magic) you can write a single function that does the trick for all immutable data-types, right? Yes, we have some magic @mbouaziz [code] in Infer that does this to create as much sharing as possible as values are Marshaled out. [code] <https://github.com/facebook/infer/blob/master/infer/src/istd/MaximumSharing.ml> Genprint v0.4 ═════════════ Archive: <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-genprint-v0-4/5575/1> progman announced ───────────────── A re-announcement of Genprint, a general value printing library, that addresses prior limitations that made it none too useful! 1. It didn't work correctly for 4.08.0, the latest compiler release as of first announcement (though fine for 4.02 .. 4.07.1) 2. There was an awkward need to specify a search path for .cmt files when working with the likes of Dune (which uses separate directories for source, .cmi and (for opt) .cmt files) 3. More often than not values of interest would display simply as `<abstr>' owing to the presence of signature abstraction of the module's type of interest. These issues have been addressed: 1. Works with versions 4.04 .. 4.10.0 (earlier versions became invalid after a dependency change to ppxlib) 2. The location of .cmt files is captured automatically by the PPX preprocessor. 3. Signatures at the implementation level (.mli files) and internally (functor application constraints) are removed to reveal the inner structure of otherwise abstract values. For instance, the Ephemeron module: ┌──── │ module EM=Ephemeron.K1.Make(struct type t=int let equal=(=) let hash=Hashtbl.hash end) │ open EM │ let _= │ let v=EM.create 0 in │ EM.add v 12345678 'X'; │ let emprint ppf (v: Obj.Ephemeron.t) = │ Format.fprintf ppf "<C wrapper of key/data>" in │ [%install_printer emprint]; │ [%pr ephem v]; └──── Which prints: ┌──── │ ephem => {size = 1; │ data = │ [|Empty; Empty; Empty; Empty; Empty; Empty; Empty; Empty; Empty; │ Empty; Empty; Cons (922381915, <C wrapper of key/data>, Empty); │ Empty; Empty; Empty; Empty|]; │ seed = 0; initial_size = 16} └──── This also demos the [%install_printer] facility which mirrors the REPL's. Installation is via the Opam main repository. Additionally, the project repository [contains] two compiler versions of _ocamldebug_ integrated with the Genprint library which thereby becomes its default printer. All of which makes this library much more useful than previously. See the [project page] for the details. [contains] <https://github.com/progman1/genprintlib/tree/master/debugger> [project page] <https://github.com/progman1/genprintlib> Other OCaml News ════════════════ From the ocamlcore planet blog ────────────────────────────── Editor note: Thanks to [ezcurl], I can restore this section. I'm putting all the links this week, I will prune to only put the new ones next week. Here are links from many OCaml blogs aggregated at [OCaml Planet]. • [An in-depth Look at OCaml’s new “Best-fit” Garbage Collector Strategy] • [Sliding Tile Puzzle, Self-Contained OCaml Webapp] • [New version of Try OCaml in beta!] • [Frama-Clang 0.0.8 is out. Download it here.] • [A reasonable TyXML release | Drup's thingies] • [Alt-Ergo Users’ Club Annual Meeting] • [OCaml iOS Apps Ported to Browser] • [Watch all of Jane Street's tech talks] • [Mercurial: prettyconfig extension] • [Mercurial extensions (update)] • [2019 at OCamlPro] • [Bitbucket repository migration] • [Troubleshooting systemd with SystemTap] • [Ocsigen Start updated] • [Ocsigen Start updated] • [opam 2.0.6 release] • [opam 2.0.6 release] • [Hackers and climate activists join forces in Leipzig] • [Deploying authoritative OCaml-DNS servers as MirageOS unikernels] • [Reproducible MirageOS unikernel builds] • [Using Python and OCaml in the same Jupyter notebook] • [Coq 8.11+beta1 is out] • [Deep-Learning the Hardest Go Problem in the World] • [Frama-C 20.0 (Calcium) is out. Download it here.] • [Testing OCaml releases with opamcheck] • [Coq 8.10.2 is out] • [Announcing Irmin 2.0.0] • [BAP 2.0 is released] • [CI/CD pipelines: Monad, Arrow or Dart?] • [On fixed-point theorems in synthetic computability] • [Runners in action] • [Coq 8.10.1 is out] • [Announcing MirageOS 3.6.0] • [Commas in big numbers everywhere: An OpenType adventure] • [Coq 8.10.0 is out] • [OCaml expert and beginner training by OCamlPro (in French): Nov. 5-6 & 7-8] • [Mr. MIME - Parse and generate emails] • [A look back on OCaml since 2011] • [Frama-C 19.1 (Potassium) is out. Download ithere.] • [Coq 8.10+beta3 is out] • [Updated Cheat Sheets: OCaml Language and OCaml Standard Library] • [Frama-Clang 0.0.7 is out. Download ithere.] • [Decompress: Experiences with OCaml optimization] • [On complete ordered fields] • [An introduction to fuzzing OCaml with AFL, Crowbar and Bun] • [What is algebraic about algebraic effects?] • [The blog moved from Wordpress to Jekyll] • [OCamlPro’s compiler team work update] • [What the interns have wrought, 2019 edition] • [Decompress: The New Decompress API] [ezcurl] <https://github.com/c-cube/ezcurl> [OCaml Planet] <http://ocaml.org/community/planet/> [An in-depth Look at OCaml’s new “Best-fit” Garbage Collector Strategy] <http://www.ocamlpro.com/2020/03/23/ocaml-new-best-fit-garbage-collector/> [Sliding Tile Puzzle, Self-Contained OCaml Webapp] <http://psellos.com/2020/03/2020.03.how-i-wrote-elastic-man.html> [New version of Try OCaml in beta!] <http://www.ocamlpro.com/2020/03/16/new-version-of-try-ocaml-in-beta/> [Frama-Clang 0.0.8 is out. Download it here.] <http://frama-c.com/index.html> [A reasonable TyXML release | Drup's thingies] <https://drup.github.io/2020/03/06/tyxml440/> [Alt-Ergo Users’ Club Annual Meeting] <http://www.ocamlpro.com/2020/03/03/alt-ergo-userss-club-annual-meeting/> [OCaml iOS Apps Ported to Browser] <http://psellos.com/2020/02/2020.02.kid-charlemagne.html> [Watch all of Jane Street's tech talks] <https://blog.janestreet.com/watch-all-of-jane-streets-tech-talks/> [Mercurial: prettyconfig extension] <http://blog.0branch.com/posts/2020-02-15-prettyconfig-extension.html> [Mercurial extensions (update)] <http://blog.0branch.com/posts/2020-02-05-hg-extensions.html> [2019 at OCamlPro] <http://www.ocamlpro.com/2020/02/04/2019-at-ocamlpro/> [Bitbucket repository migration] <http://blog.0branch.com/posts/2020-02-03-bitbucket-migration.html> [Troubleshooting systemd with SystemTap] <https://blog.janestreet.com/troubleshooting-systemd-with-systemtap/> [Ocsigen Start updated] <https://ocsigen.github.io/blog/2020/01/20/release/> [opam 2.0.6 release] <http://www.ocamlpro.com/2020/01/16/opam-2-0-6-release/> [opam 2.0.6 release] <https://opam.ocaml.org/blog/opam-2-0-6/> [Hackers and climate activists join forces in Leipzig] <https://mirage.io/blog/ccc-2019-leipzig> [Deploying authoritative OCaml-DNS servers as MirageOS unikernels] <https://hannes.nqsb.io/Posts/DnsServer> [Reproducible MirageOS unikernel builds] <https://hannes.nqsb.io/Posts/ReproducibleOPAM> [Using Python and OCaml in the same Jupyter notebook] <https://blog.janestreet.com/using-python-and-ocaml-in-the-same-jupyter-notebook/> [Coq 8.11+beta1 is out] <https://coq.inria.fr/news/coq-8-11beta1-is-out.html> [Deep-Learning the Hardest Go Problem in the World] <https://blog.janestreet.com/deep-learning-the-hardest-go-problem-in-the-world/> [Frama-C 20.0 (Calcium) is out. Download it here.] <http://frama-c.com/index.html> [Testing OCaml releases with opamcheck] <http://gallium.inria.fr/blog/an-ocaml-release-story-1> [Coq 8.10.2 is out] <https://coq.inria.fr/news/coq-8-10-2-is-out.html> [Announcing Irmin 2.0.0] <https://mirage.io/blog/introducing-irmin-v2> [BAP 2.0 is released] <http://binaryanalysisplatform.github.io/bap-2-release> [CI/CD pipelines: Monad, Arrow or Dart?] <https://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2019/11/14/cicd-pipelines/> [On fixed-point theorems in synthetic computability] <http://math.andrej.com/2019/11/07/on-fixed-point-theorems-in-synthetic-computability/> [Runners in action] <http://math.andrej.com/2019/10/28/runners-in-action/> [Coq 8.10.1 is out] <https://coq.inria.fr/news/coq-8-10-1-is-out.html> [Announcing MirageOS 3.6.0] <https://mirage.io/blog/announcing-mirage-36-release> [Commas in big numbers everywhere: An OpenType adventure] <https://blog.janestreet.com/commas-in-big-numbers-everywhere/> [Coq 8.10.0 is out] <https://coq.inria.fr/news/coq-8-10-0-is-out.html> [OCaml expert and beginner training by OCamlPro (in French): Nov. 5-6 & 7-8] <http://www.ocamlpro.com/2019/09/25/ocaml-expert-and-beginner-training-by-ocamlpro-in-french-nov-5-6-7-8/> [Mr. MIME - Parse and generate emails] <https://tarides.com/blog/2019-09-25-mr-mime-parse-and-generate-emails.html> [A look back on OCaml since 2011] <http://www.ocamlpro.com/2019/09/20/a-look-back-on-ocaml/> [Frama-C 19.1 (Potassium) is out. Download ithere.] <http://frama-c.com/index.html> [Coq 8.10+beta3 is out] <https://coq.inria.fr/news/coq-8-10beta3-is-out.html> [Updated Cheat Sheets: OCaml Language and OCaml Standard Library] <http://www.ocamlpro.com/2019/09/13/updated-cheat-sheets-ocaml-language-and-ocaml-standard-library/> [Frama-Clang 0.0.7 is out. Download ithere.] <http://frama-c.com/index.html> [Decompress: Experiences with OCaml optimization] <https://tarides.com/blog/2019-09-13-decompress-experiences-with-ocaml-optimization.html> [On complete ordered fields] <http://math.andrej.com/2019/09/09/on-complete-ordered-fields/> [An introduction to fuzzing OCaml with AFL, Crowbar and Bun] <https://tarides.com/blog/2019-09-04-an-introduction-to-fuzzing-ocaml-with-afl-crowbar-and-bun.html> [What is algebraic about algebraic effects?] <http://math.andrej.com/2019/09/03/what-is-algebraic-about-algebraic-effects/> [The blog moved from Wordpress to Jekyll] <http://math.andrej.com/2019/09/03/the-blog-moved-from-wordpress-to-jekyll/> [OCamlPro’s compiler team work update] <http://www.ocamlpro.com/2019/08/30/ocamlpros-compiler-team-work-update/> [What the interns have wrought, 2019 edition] <https://blog.janestreet.com/what-the-interns-have-wrought-2019/> [Decompress: The New Decompress API] <https://tarides.com/blog/2019-08-26-decompress-the-new-decompress-api.html> Old CWN ═══════ If you happen to miss a CWN, you can [send me a message] and I'll mail it to you, or go take a look at [the archive] or the [RSS feed of the archives]. If you also wish to receive it every week by mail, you may subscribe [online]. [Alan Schmitt] [send me a message] <mailto:alan.schm...@polytechnique.org> [the archive] <http://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/> [RSS feed of the archives] <http://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/cwn.rss> [online] <http://lists.idyll.org/listinfo/caml-news-weekly/> [Alan Schmitt] <http://alan.petitepomme.net/>
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